Smoke and mirrors; deceit and betrayals

Deceit is part of human nature and at one point or the other, we have all experienced this vice. Typically, humans rely on deceit when they want to take advantage of the next person and it goes hand-in-hand with cheating.

I recently finished watching the popular Netflix series; squid game and it's all thanks to the recent poor network service I have been having since yesterday. I couldn't grind on read.cash and noise.cash, so I used that opportunity to complete the squid game series.

Spoiler alert: if you haven't seen squid game yet and you're planning on watching it later, you should probably stop reading at this point because I'm going all out 🤣

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The episode I love most is the sixth episode and you know why I picked it? It is the most emotional episode of the entire series (in my opinion). In that episode, they played the fourth game and I got to see how human nature can change within few minutes.

Betrayal, deceit, backstabbing and sacrifice were some of the things I saw during that game (the one that involved marbles). You guys saw what happened to Ali, right? I was heartbroken, and it clearly shows how humans turn on each other when situations get tough.

Sang-Woo took advantage of Ali's naivety but I wouldn't blame him coz he clearly didn't break the rules of the game, although the way he got the marbles wasn't honourable.

Seeing what happened to Ali reinforces the mentality I have of never fully trusting people. Ali was clearly naive and believed Sang-Woo will stick with him no matter what, and Sang-Woo took advantage of that. He forgot they were playing a game and everyone there is a competition.

Sang-Woo has been good to Ali and have helped him out multiple times, they have been really good friends but Sang-Woo didn't think twice before betraying him. This sort of thing also happens in the real world; I have seen very good friends kill each other just because of envy and jealousy.

And what of Gi-hun and the old man? He took advantage of the old man's memory loss (which he was faking!) to try and win the game. Despite he and the old man promising to be friends forever, Gi-hun was willing to win the game by trickery and sacrificing the old man.

But shouldn't we say the biggest deceiver in this episode is the old man? Before getting to the end of the series, I was already suspecting the old man and he was just using "dementia" as a smokescreen to conceal who he truly is.

I have been seeing hints throughout the entire series and I have been wondering how the old man have been surviving. The puzzle was almost complete in this fourth game after I observed the way he was acting, and the camera didn't show him getting shot.

Despite surrounded with treachery, betrayal and deceit, we saw an act of love and sacrifice from two girls that have barely been friends for a few days; Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong.

Ji-yeong sacrificed herself and deliberately lost the game so that Sae-byeok could progress. According to her, she doesn't have anyone that's waiting for her to return and she doesn't know what she will do with the price money if she wins.

It's just too bad that Sae-byeok couldn't make a better use of Ji-yeong sacrifice till the end.

Concluding thoughts

Squid game is a very interesting series and it's certainly worth the hype it received. There are lots of morals and lessons to learn from the movie, the games reflects some of the harsh realities of life.

From most of the games, we can learn that anyone can betray you anytime things gets tough for them. A friend that is always helping you today can sell you out tomorrow when he/she has been pushed to the wall.

But I just gotta ask, what would you have done if you were in Sang-Woo and Gi-uhun's shoes during the fourth game? Do let me know in the comment section below.

Thanks for reading 💗💗💗

Monday October 11th, 2021